Category: Passion

There was a time in which no word struck such fear into the heart of a mariner than the name of the kraken. Said to be an island-sized monster with a penchant for sinking ships, it terrorized sailors in northern Europe. Thought to be an entire mile long, it was known to be a vicious creature that fed on the flesh of unfortunate sailors. It was so large that even if it decided in a rare moment of mercy to spare you, as it departed the waves it created would often destroy your ship anyway.

In pop culture the kraken is generally depicted as a massive cephalopod-esque creature, occasionally with some artistic liberties added such as spikes on the tentacles. This is actually a fairly accurate representation of what the kraken was thought to be in Scandinavian myth, which is where the foundations for the modern legend were laid. Despite this, there have been other cultures that have a monster similar to the kraken. For example, the ancient Greeks told of two horrors that each inhabited once side of the Strait of Messina, Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla was said to be a massive creature with numerous heads, all waiting to snap up the sailors forced her way by Charybdis.

While at first glance she does not bear many similarities to the kraken, it is possible to see how both myths may have originated from the same creature. If you replace the gaping mouths of Scylla with thrashing tentacles the two creatures would be near indistinguishable. However, the kraken as we would recognize it today was first mentioned in a 13th-century Scandinavian saga which depicted two sea monsters, the Hafgufa and the Lyngbakr. The Hafgufa is thought to be the same as the kraken.

There is an obvious culprit for the myth of the kraken: the giant squid. While it perhaps does not reach quite the same size as the kraken was purported to, the fact is that we know very little about giant squid. They are extremely difficult to come across, but our best estimates peg them at 15-18m long and around 300kg. And there is even more evidence to support that they inspired the myth of the kraken. The Scandinavian saga mentioned above about the two sea monsters depicts one, Hafgufa, similar to a massively proportioned squid. But the other creature, Lyngbakr, is very similar to a whale. In the saga these creatures are locked in a battle. Here’s why that’s interesting; it is a known habit of whales, specifically sperm whales, to hunt giant squid. Adult sperm whales often have scars from where the tentacles of the squid ripped off their skin. While it is unlikely that the giant squid often wins, it is possible that the squid is able to drown the whale although little evidence of this has been found. In any case, it seems interesting that the Scandinavians knew that these creatures were connected. 

So does the kraken exist? I doubt that the mile-long leviathan described in mythology is real, but I will say this. For all our reliance on the oceans of Earth, we have barely explored 20 percent of them. While the kraken itself may not exist, we have no idea what could live in the dark depths of the sea. One day we might find something that makes even the legendary kraken look ordinary.

While not as popular as other mythological creatures, the myth of the mermaid or siren is nonetheless well known. The idea of a woman (or, occasionally, a man) that lives underwater is fairly widespread. The origin of the myth can most likely be traced back to Assyria through their legends of Atargatis, the goddess of fertility. Throughout history mermaids have been connected to disasters such as floods, shipwrecks and storms in Europe, Africa and Asia.

Recent adaptations of the mermaid story have conditioned us to think of them as beautiful, kind women, and this is an accurate representations of mermaids in some cultures. In the Scandinavian countries there was mythical creature known as a selkie, half-human and half-seal. While on land a selkie would be in completely human form, and they were known for being excellent wives and mothers. However, some myths are significantly more sinister. Perhaps the most common of these darker myths is that of the siren, a Greek creature known for luring hapless sailors to their deaths with enchanting singing. Less well known is the African folklore of Mami Wata, a water spirit who steals men and kills those whose offerings do not please her. In fact, even Disney’s The Little Mermaid was based on a far darker story by Hans Christian Andersen which could charitably be described as a tragedy.

The most widely accepted reason for the mermaid myth are the aptly named sirenians such as manatees and dugongs. From a distance, these strange creatures could seem somewhat humanoid but with a fish-tail. Sadly, the most impressive sirenian of them all – Steller’s Sea Cow, has been driven to extinction. At an incredible 33 feet long and 24,000 pounds, it was so large that it never need fear predation until humans came along and wiped it out by the turn of the 19th century.

There is also another, more interesting in my opinion, possible origin for mermaid lore. An extremely rare condition known as sirenomelia manifests itself through the fusion of both lower legs upon birth. In many cases, this gives the appearance of a tail not unlike that of a fish. While it is a rare condition, a few isolated incidences thousands of years ago could easily have been blown out of proportion by the Assyrians before being appropriated by other cultures.

Sadly, it seems that the myth of the mermaid will have to remain just that: a myth. And it seems that even those creatures that are not mythical may pass into legends in the near future if we keep driving them instinct. Who knows, maybe in a century someone will be blogging about mythical creatures and write about animals like “tigers” or “wolves” as if they never existed at all.

 

Simon, Matt. “Fantastically Wrong: The Murderous, Sometimes Sexy History of the Mermaid.” Wired, Conde Nast, 19 July 2018, www.wired.com/2014/10/fantastically-wrong-strange-murderous-sometimes-sexy-history-mermaid/.

 

“The Lore of Murderous Mermaids.” F Yeah History, 6 Oct. 2017, fyeahhistory.com/2017/10/07/the-lore-of-murderous-mermaids/.

 

Winters, Riley. “Legends of the Selkies, Hidden Gems of Sea Mythology.” Ancient Origins, Ancient Origins, 8 Aug. 2016, www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/legends-selkies-hidden-germs-sea-mythology-006409.

 

This post is about a mythological creature that most of the readers (if not all) will be unfamiliar with: the vanara. In Hindu mythology vanaras were half-man half-ape creatures who played a pivotal role in the Ramayana, a Hindu epic. The basic premise of the Ramayana goes like this: Rama was the prince of Ayodhya, but was exiled for fourteen years due to the plotting of his stepmother Kaikeyi. He traveled through forests with his wife Sita and younger brother Lakshmana, but eventually Sita was kidnapped by the demon king of Lanka – Ravana. The majority of the epic consists of Rama trying to rescue Sita from Ravana, and in the course of traveling to Lanka he meets the vanaras who end up agreeing to help him rescue Sita.

Throughout the Ramayana the vanaras are described as being similar to humans in their intetwlligence and other characteristics, but simultaneously ape-like in appearance with fur and tails. In addition, they were said to have strength and agility beyond that of a normal man which is one of the reasons they were able to stand against the demonic armies of Lanka. Some of the vanaras were said to be direct descendants of the gods. For example, the most famous and powerful of the vanaras, Lord Hanuman, was the son of the wind-god Vayu and was known display god-like powers himself. In fact, he shows up in another Indian epic, the Mahabharata which occurs thousands of years later, implying that he is immortal. 

There are a few different theories about the origin of the myth of the vanaras. Obviously there is the possibility that they were purely mythological. This is the simplest answer, and therefore probably the correct one. But, ignoring this for the sake of argument, there are a few feasible alternatives. The word vanara itself is derived from two Sanskrit words: vana (“forest”) and nara (“man”), therefore meaning forest-man or forest-dweller. This leads us to the conclusion that the vanaras were simply a race of men who lived in the forest. Perhaps the part about them being monkeys and having superhuman traits was simply a form of extreme artistic license. To further support this conclusion, the word used for “tail” in the original Ramayana could be translated to have actually meant “penis.” Notably, none of the female vanaras (of which there were few in the epic) were described as having tails.

Another possibility is that there was some other species of hominid living on the Indian peninsula thousands of years ago. It is possible that our ancestors encountered, for instance, the Neanderthal species. Neanderthals had similar skeletal structure as humans which makes them look alike, but there were some differences such as the widened brow and flattened nose. Interestingly enough, these are also features that chimpanzees have. Perhaps we encountered another hominid species thousands of years ago and preserved our experience with oral retellings, which have a tendency to get less and less accurate over time.

As I said earlier, in all likelihood the vanaras were but a myth. But there is some evidence to say that they did exist; either as a tribe of humans or some other species of hominid.

While perhaps not as iconic as some of the other myths that I have written about previously, the Amazons are nonetheless fairly well-known. Although today the name “Amazon” is more likely to bring to mind online shopping, it meant something completely different to the ancient Greeks. To them, the Amazons were fearsome female warriors. Now, pop culture would tell you that the Greeks believed that the Amazons cut off and cauterized their breasts so they didn’t get in the way of shooting arrows. But this idea is false, Amazones was not even a Greek word. The idea that it meant “lacking breasts” was invented by the Greek philosopher Hellenikos when he tried to combine a foreign word a that meant without and the word mazos that sounded somewhat similar for the Greek word for breast. However, this idea was rejected by his contemporaries at the time and was only taken up again relatively recently. Many of their queens were prominent characters in the stories of heroes such as Heracles, Theseus, Achilles and Odysseus. Even the misogynistic Greeks respected their capabilities, to the point where in the Iliad Odysseus’s men would boast about having killed them in battle, seeing it as a feat of arms.

In fact, over time the Amazons became more and more important to the Greeks, specifically the Athenians. They believed that the defeat of the Amazons was one of the major catalysts for the foundation of Athens itself. The only problem was…they had no proof. Eventually the historian Herodotus postulated that the Amazons eventually intermarried with the Scythians, and their descendants became nomadic warriors known as the Sauromatians. After this there was no more real evidence to support this idea until a U.S-Russian archaeology team discovered nearly 150 Sauromatian graves near the Russia-Kazakhstan border. The female corpses showed signs of being warriors; bow legged from riding on horseback and often buried with their weapons. In addition, they were nearly 5 feet 6 inches which was extremely tall for that time period.

In all likelihood the Amazons did exist in some capacity, most likely as the Scythians and their descendants. The Scythians were a nomadic people who ranged from the Black Sea to Mongolia, and about one-third of their women seemed to have fought beside their men. They had a tribal society in which everyone was expected to pull their own weight, which explains why both men and women were taught how to fight. So, while the idea of an all-female society that mutilated themselves to increase efficiency in battle may not have been true, the Amazons were a very real group of people. They were fearsome enough warriors that the Greeks respected them, and even told legends about them.

Of all folk creatures, the unicorn perhaps has some of the most interesting history behind it. Although you probably already know, a unicorn is essentially a horse that has a single, spiraling horn located at the center of its forehead. Depending on what culture you are looking at, a unicorn can have numerous qualities; from healing effects to a horn that can nullify poison when stirred in a drink. In China there is a creature similar to a unicorn called a kirin, and its presence can predict either the birth of a royal baby, or an impending death!

However, the unicorn was not always described as simply being a horse with a spiraling horn. An early description of the unicorn was written by Pliny the Elder in his encyclopedia Natural History; the only problem being that Pliny literally wrote down everything he heard about with little to no attention paid to the veracity behind the story. The description he wrote is this, “The unicorn is the fiercest animal, and it is said that it is impossible to capture one alive. It has the body of a horse, the head of a stag, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a boar, and a single black horn three feet long in the middle of its forehead. Its cry is a deep bellow.” Now, the myth may have arisen from sightings of antelopes and similar animals, but the more likely culprit is this guy:

The Indian rhinoceros. In fact, during this time period the unicorn was sometimes known as the Indian ass. Admittedly,the rhino bears little resemblance to the modern interpretation of the unicorn, the unicorn strayed further and further from the original interpretation as time wore on. Perhaps the next large landmark in the history of the unicorn was in medieval Europe. During this time, the Vikings actually sold so-called unicorn horns to European countries such as England. A single horn would go for the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars, and Queen Elizabeth I actually received a carved and jewel-encrusted horn that was worth the price of a castle (about 4-5 million pounds today).

There was just one teeny problem with the unicorn horn market…unicorns don’t exist. Hate to break it to you. The Vikings were ripping off their European friends and selling them horns taken from a creature that doesn’t even live on land:

Yep, they passed off narwhal horn as that of a unicorn. Actually, it’s not even a horn but a tusk. The Vikings would either buy them a dime a dozen from the Inuit or harvest it themselves, and then turn a major profit off the Europeans. This is probably why the modern version of a unicorn has a spiral horn, it was inspired by the tusk of a narwhal. Kind of genius when you think about it, and it indicates that the Vikings were smarter than a lot of people give them credit for today.

 

“The Vikings Sold Narwhal Tusks as Unicorn Horns.” The Vintage News, The Vintage News, 20 Mar. 2017, www.thevintagenews.com/2017/03/21/the-vikings-sold-narwhal-tusks-as-unicorn-horns/.

 

Simon, Matt. “Fantastically Wrong: The Weird, Kinda Perverted History of the Unicorn.” Wired, Conde Nast, 19 July 2018, www.wired.com/2015/02/fantastically-wrong-unicorn/.

Perhaps one of the few creatures in folklore that has even the slightest possibility of existing is the yeti. The “abominable snowman,” as it is sometimes known, is an ape-like creature that inhabits the Himalayas in India and Nepal. Funnily enough, the word “yeti” actually means “that thing over there” in the local Sherpa language, and this was somehow mistranslated to “abominable snowman.” In any case, it is said to have a muscular, 7-8 ft tall frame and walk upright. The yeti has always been a point of contention between the public, much like the Loch Ness monster. Sightings keep popping up, but evidence is scarce.

The evidence pointing towards the existence of the yeti is sparse, mostly consisting of eyewitness testimony. However, it is a well-established fact that humans are terrible witnesses. We forget more than we remember, and have a truly impressive case of confirmation bias. To drive this point home, just look at all the tangible “evidence” supporting the existence of the yeti. The vast majority of biological samples, such as hair or teeth, are easily traced back to a different animal. One of the most common animals mistaken for the yeti is the himalayan bear, and this is understandable when considering that bears are known to stand on their hind legs. From a distance, in conditions with low visibility this could lend a more ape-like appearance, especially when factoring the aforementioned confirmation bias.

There are only a few reasons to believe that a primate-esque creature does live in the Himalayas. The first is just from an evolutionary standpoint; species of apes are spread out through Asia and it makes sense that one would evolve to fit this ecological niche. Although i’m not sure that the mountains would be able to support the metabolism of an animal such as a gorilla at higher elevations, it would likely have to be a smaller primate not much larger than a chimpanzee. After all, an average silverback will eat nearly 60 pounds of vegetation a day which is much easier in a jungle than a mountain.

However, while on the subject of gorillas there is a slight silver lining for yeti-believing diehards. Among african tribes there had long been tales of giant men who roamed the mountains. When Europeans colonized Africa they were understandable skeptical of the existence of such creatures, and continued to be skeptical despite numerous eyewitness accounts. The stories were truly terrifying, describing tribes of giant beasts with a horrific temper who had the habit of kidnapping and killing innocent humans. It wasn’t until 1847 that it was learned that this creature looked a little less like this:

And a little more like this:

While I do think that the chance of the yeti being real is extremely small, it is possible that a creature with some similarity to it exists. Simply because it is not impossible that such a creature could evolve in the Himalayas, and also because the Himalayas themselves are so difficult to completely explore. And, as the gorilla demonstrates, humans have a pretty amazing capacity to be blind to the world around us which makes me hesitant to completely discount the possibility of the yeti.

In ages past there were few creatures more likely illicit fear than the vampire. Night-stalking, blood-sucking ruthless demigods, vampires are another example of an old myth revitalized by pop culture. But where did they begin?

 

There is no one culture that has a monopoly on the idea of nocturnal demons that prey on humans through drinking blood or consuming flesh. From Indian pisachas to the Greek Lamia, creatures like these have been a near constant throughout every civilization. But those myths most similar to the story circulated today are from northern Europe, mostly Slavic countries. The idea of a nocturnal predator that bears a vague similarity to the modern vampire is an old one, but the current idea of a vampire is relatively new. While 12th century scientists described similar creatures, the idea of a vampire really kicked off hundreds of years later in the 18th century. During this time there was mass hysteria through Europe over what the public viewed as an increase in vampire attacks.

In my last blog about werewolves, I noted how there were clinical diseases that could have driven people to believe that possession by an animal spirit was possible. Diseases may have played an even larger role in the myth of a vampire. One example of this is porphyria, a disease that results in the afflicted getting rashes or blisters when exposed to the sun. Moreover, in extreme cases it also causes the gums to recede making the teeth more prominent. While incidences of this disease are very low, they could have been higher a few hundred years ago due to isolated communities with a more inbred and less varied gene pool.

Another disease that could have led to these myths is rabies. Although it does not bear many similarities to the myth at first glance, there are a few. First off, rabies makes a person appear mad. They will try to bite or attack anything that they come across, giving the appearance that they are trying to eat you. In addition, it is easily transmittable. This, to an uneducated person, could seem like a vampire converting humans.

There are other naturally-occurring phenomena that could appear vampiristic in nature as well. For example, up until relatively recently humans did not understand the mechanisms behind decomposition. So, when people suspected that a newly deceased person was actually a vampire they would dig up the corpse after a set amount of time. If the corpse was not decomposed enough then they would believe it to be a vampire and deal with it accordingly.

Sadly, it seems that we are able to conclude that the handsome-as-hell bad boy vampire probably doesn’t exist.

On the upside, we can also conclude that this doesn’t exist:

I’ll take that trade any day.

In my last post I was debating internally whether I would write about food or mythology. Both my own inclinations and those of the commenters seemed to point towards the latter, and far be it from me to swim against the current.

This post is going to discuss one of the most consistent themes throughout mythology; that of the man that turns into an animal. The modern term for this is a therianthrope, therian meaning mammal and thrope meaning man (although the meaning of the word is not limited to mammals; a therianthrope can be any animal). Now, the most common example of this which i’m sure all of you will know about is a lycanthrope, or werewolf. Pop culture has sold us on the idea of cursed men and women who turn on the full moon into slavering beasts, but this is a far cry from how the legends started.

The idea of a werewolf can be traced back thousands of years in multiple countries, but the closest origin to the modern strain is probably the story of Lycaon. Lycaon was a Greek king who hosted the god Zeus at a banquet. He either did not believe Zeus was a god or he wanted to insult him, so he killed his own sons and tried to feed them to the god. Upon discovery Zeus was understandably furious, and cursed Lycaon to turn into a wolf. This is also where we derive the term lycanthropy.

There are also many myths that do not include a wholly physical transformation into an beast, but rather a mental or spiritual one. The classic example of this is a berserker. In Norse the word berserkr literally translates into bear-coat (and that’s not a typo, it was actually spelled berserkr in Old Norse). These warriors actually believed themselves to be channeling the spirit of an animal, typically a wolf or bear, when they went into battle.

By all accounts berserkers actually existed; there are numerous historical reports of berserkers fighting in battles and being the deciding factor (although not always in their favor, they were known for killing allies as well as enemies in the heat of battle). Current theories are that the feeling of berserkergang or “going berserk” was actually induced by some combination of hallucinogenic mushrooms, alcohol, and henbane. This would account for many of the myths surrounding berserkers such as their change in skin color, insane rage, feats of strength, and inability to tell apart friend and foe.

Interestingly enough, lycanthropy is not only a mythological condition but also a clinical one. It is a psychiatric disease characterized by the afflicted believing that they have transformed into an animal, although not necessarily a wolf. This is one of numerous syndromes that can result in the afflicted behaving like an animal. Taken together, they could easily have inspired some amount of therianthropic myths.

Overall it is somewhat doubtful that any humans physically changed into ravening beasts on a full moon. Go figure. But there were in fact actual reasons why ancient civilizations would have believed this to be true, ranging from shrooms to clinical diseases.

When thinking about what I want to write for my passion blog there are a lot of ideas that came to mind and were quickly discarded. After all, this is a topic that I must find interesting but should also have enough depth that I can write about it for weeks on end. That is a tall order, but I may have finally found a couple candidates.

My parents have always pushed me to be adventurous with food. Growing up I ate a lot of South Indian food at home which has a relatively unique flavor profile, but after while it gets as repetitive as anything that you eat over and over. My parents realized this, and I think that we ate out both at a larger variety of restaurants and more often than most families. All of this contributed to a love of trying new places to eat and new kinds of food. This all leads me to believe that writing a blog about the places to eat on and around campus would be an interesting (if unoriginal) topic. But there are a couple problems with this idea, not the least of which being that I will constantly be straining my wallet at places downtown that don’t give a meal plan discount. This is especially true because to accurately write about restaurant you need to try multiple things on the menu.

Once I realized that the food blog route may not be as feasible as I hoped I started looking at other options. Another topic that fascinated me since I was a child is mythology. As I grew up this translated from an interest in the myths themselves to wondering where the myths came from. The second blog topic I am thinking about would look at different myths or folktales and think about why they exist. What prompted the Greek tales of Amazons? Was The Beast of Gevaudan real? This blog idea seems like it would be a lot of fun to write about, as well as being much more original than the other topic. Currently I am leaning towards this second topic, but a week is a lot of time in which I may think of a completely unrelated topic that I like even more.